


haunted, unhaunted

by velavelavela



Series: and the four of us will not betray (no money will shake us) [2]
Category: H.I.V.E. Series - Mark Walden
Genre: F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Sad, max is not doing well and anastasia is horrible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23866021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velavelavela/pseuds/velavelavela
Summary: And if Elena is with her family again, so be it.
Relationships: Anastasia Furan/Maximilian Nero, Elena Furan/Maximilian Nero
Series: and the four of us will not betray (no money will shake us) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719550
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	haunted, unhaunted

There is no good word for the kind of hurt that sidles in your chest and makes short work of your ribcage. The kind of hurt that licks down your spine as if to clean a wound, a wound that is not physical but visceral. The kind of hurt that comes with separation.

Elena left and said “don’t follow” and in a world like the one they function in, it was a command and a curt threat and not necessarily unheard of. There is no static as a criminal, there are penthouses and safehouses, walls in bathroom stalls and blankets on the floor of a warehouse. Anastasia and Pietor were slippery, why shouldn’t Elena be?

There hadn’t been a moment he hadn’t thought of her since they met. Anastasia keeping her sister from him wasn’t the nastiest thing she’d done, but sometimes he wonders if it would’ve been a good thing to not be in love. Maybe Anastasia had been looking out for him in some perverse way, knowing the beauty of her sister, knowing the way Max loved— or, didn’t.

It takes a lot for him to love. He never loved Anastasia, he loved the feeling he got when he held her in his arms, because he was touch starved, because his mother never kissed his forehead, but Anastasia’s didn’t either, Anastasia didn’t have a mother, didn’t have a family outside Pietor and Elena. Beautiful Elena. Elena, with the golden-brown eyes, like honey in the sun. Elena is his sun.

And it’s behind the clouds because she said “don’t follow” and he obeyed and then when he hadn’t heard from her in a few weeks, cursed himself for obeying, and now it has now been 210 days, exactly.

He has the sound on for his phone, his blackbox too, but only for her contact linked to the most reliable number that she has. Sometimes when he wakes up, he can swear he can feel warmth on the bed next to him. She makes him feel weak.

Max hasn’t called Anastasia, because he isn’t low enough to ask for her help. He hasn’t called Pietor, because he will never get anything out of the brick of a man other than profanity and drunken assaults. Max doesn’t need help here, and he doesn’t need help from the Furans.

And if Elena is with her family again, so be it.

He remembers something Anastasia said to him back when he and Elena revealed their relationship:

Anastasia swirled her wine. She had no other reaction physically but to force something else to move. She looked up at them from her desk with a coy smile,

“Congratulations. Break her heart and I’ll kill you.”

Elena huffed, smoothing her palms down her thighs, shaking her head, “can you not be normal about anything. Nastya?”

Max knew Anastasia well enough to know that she was jealous, and when Anastasia doesn’t get what she wants, people suffer. And this was proven later that night after Elena had retired to the guest bedroom with the bigger shower and Max and Anastasia were alone in front of the fire drinking whiskey, almost like old times.

They didn’t talk about anything, because they never did know how to talk without kissing, and Anastasia didn’t know how to kiss without tongue, and Max had dignity, so he got up to go to the other guest bedroom and lie staring at the ceiling for a few hours.

Anastasia bid him goodnight in her native tongue, but as he stood, her hand pounced like a cat, latched onto his wrist. He turned slowly, looking down at Anastasia. Anastasia who drank her coffee black and from an expensive thermos during G.L.O.V.E. meetings while avoiding eye contact with him. Who was now boring holes like maggots into his eyes. Her face was illuminated by the crackling fire, shadows dancing and making her almost Janus-faced. Max didn’t feel fear; he had learned not to over the years. He was stronger than his demons. He didn’t feel fear at her expression, but he knew that if he were another man, he would.

“If you get her pregnant,” she said, voice flat and steady, “I’ll kill her and the baby inside.”

A chill went down his spine, but he just jerked his arm from her grip and strode to the hallway. Before he left the room, he turned.

“This world is no place for a child.”

Now, Max’s chest aches with cold fire late at night with want, with need, and he turns on his side to check his phone then blackbox. He has a missed call from Nathaniel. He has spent too long away from H.I.V.E., his new project, the reason he’s speaking to his father again. Max has learned how to use people from the best. He has a few texts from Diabolus, asking if he is okay and if he wants to come to the yacht and “play pool or darts or something, anything to get you out of this funk”.

What funk? The funk you feel when the love of your life has left you alone? The drumlike feeling in your ears that matches your birdlike heartbeat when you have a panic attack in the middle of the night that wakes you up and locks your body into place?

Max hasn’t had panic attacks since childhood. Tonight, it is past midnight, which means it marks 211 days. He lays on his back, then his stomach, then a flash of light aches into the sky outside the window. It is Christmas, and it is storming.

**Author's Note:**

> notes on some bits of this because a lot of this exists in my headcanon timeframe rather than in canon:  
> \--my hc is that raven was born on christmas day, hence the name "natalya"  
> \--this is set in ??? because im very aware that if max is building HIVE for the first time this would be in like the 70s, but my brain is wired to think of that set of wildcards (the furans and max) as existing only in the messy present, so as of right now this is set in an iffy technological present day


End file.
